Due to some dark subject matter in this chapter. Reader discretion is advised
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Landing Station 70, Sulci Gordii, base of Olympus Mons, Occupied Mars
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Althus Vebb was sore all over.
For three rotations, by her best guess, she had been forced to live in the tiny confinements of a large metal box. The locked cage was barely wide enough for her to completely fit. Both of her shoulders continuously rubbed themselves raw against the sides of her prison. Air holes in the sides and roof of the box allowed semi-fresh air and a small amount of light into the box.
When the guards at Area 51 had locked her inside for transport, they had granted her several bottles of water and three containers whose wrappings identified them as Lunchables. Any considerations beyond those meager meals and how exactly Althus would relieve herself while being trapped in such a small space seemed to slip their minds.
Or perhaps the Confederate guards had thought about it, right before having a good laugh. The troopers that served her captor, Colonel Bishop, were surely chosen for their sadism.
Althus spent her time shifting her aching carapace from one sheb to the other. She feared developing sleeper sores if she stayed like this much longer.
Luckily, depending on who you asked, Althus was not alone.
"Hey, Althus. Do you have any more water?" Srev Drevan asked for the thousandth time since she had been shoved in her cage. The surviving crew of the Convor had been placed in locked boxes and stacked next to one another. She wondered how that stoopa Teemasvalli was holding up in such a low oxygen setting. He was barely half as big as her but by far the largest member of the exploration crew. She didn't have a lot of sympathy for Teemasvalli as she still blamed him for getting them in their current predicament.
To tell the truth, Althus still had one bottle left. Perhaps she could have shared some of it with the begging Xexto, but she was worried about how much longer they'd be forced to remain in these boxes. She needed to conserve it for herself. It was harsh but survival needed to be her number one priority.
"She already told you no, Srev." Pontar Bephorin, their Givin navigator answered from the next box over from Srev. "And how is she supposed to get it to you? Spit it through your air holes?"
Pontar was probably handling their confinement better than the others. Givin could survive a vacuum if they had to. She suspected he hadn't even touched his provisions yet, just as surely as the rest of the crew had already devoured what they had been given.
"Pontar, do you have any idea where they've taken us?" Althus whispered in his direction through an air hole.
"I know about as much as you. We were taken by landspeeder and placed aboard a spacecraft. It never engaged its hyperdrive. We've traveled by sublight for twelve hours. I am not familiar with Earth spacecrafts's sublight classifications, so, since our starting point was Earth I'd estimate anywhere within the Sol System. We did not travel quite long enough to reach New Ryloth." Pontar answered. Althus was an engineer and could appreciate cold logic.
Althus didn't like peeping through the air holes very often. Her eyes quickly became accustomed to the dark and when exposed to even low levels of light they gave her migraine levels of pain. She wondered if it was a lingering effect of hibernation sickness, which she had acquired when that monster from the First Order had encased the Convor's crew in carbonite for their journey to Earth. Despite the inconvenience, she propped herself up several centimeters and pressed her right eye up against the nearest hole.
Outside her confinement was a poorly lit hallway somewhere aboard a starship. The steady hum of machinery wafted in through the holes. With an experienced ear, Althus judged the sublights to be rather new but several generations behind what was commonly used in the Empire. In other words, an Earth ship, but the thrum of the machinery seemed well beyond what she thought they were capable of.
"Melion! Hey, Melion, are you awake?" She call-whispered to another cage on the other side of Srev.
"Of course." The Muun answered. "It's near impossible to fall asleep when you're bent nearly in half."
"Do you have any kriffing idea where they're taking us." Althus asked. The ship's landing jets could be heard from several decks below as there was a slight shudder to the craft. A clear sign the starship had entered the upper atmosphere of a planet.
"Dank ferrik. I haven't got a clue, kid." Melion admitted. "What was that colony world of theirs? Gallium? Mercury? Sodium? Some kind of liquid metal."
"Mercury. Like the Accords. The ones that ended the war." Althus replied. At least she thought they ended the war. That's what she learned in primary academy after all. But if the war ended then why in the dark side of the Force were they prisoners of the CEN? The wretched Confederate Colonel Bishop had claimed that a new war had begun, but his boasting of Confederate victories had seemed too outlandish for Althus to take at face value.
"We are on Mars." A raspy voice came from the last box in the row. The Convor's captain, Teemsavalli, was a Dressellian and practically kept his mouth over one of the air-holes in his cage during the entire voyage to suck in the increased amount of oxygen his species required. They didn't do well in confined spaces.
"No offense, Captain." Pontar responded. "But it was your sense of direction that created our current situation."
"Stoopa, Brain-Head couldn't pull his sense of direction out of his own shebs if his life depended on it." Althus muttered to herself.
"I know Mars. I can feel it in my bones." Teemsavallis doubled down.
"ALL HANDS PREPARE FOR LANDING. LOADMASTERS ARE CLEAR FOR CROSSCHECK." A voice announced over the PA system. Althus pulled her eye away from her air hole as more lights in the cargo area turned on. It wouldn't do for the guards to see her being nosy. They'd just as readily poke her in the eye than look at her.
There was a slight thud as the transport set down on the surface of whatever world they were on, followed by the hissing release of landing jet pressure. A few minutes later a loud clank followed by a long rattle announced the lowering of the ship's forward loading ramp. Natural light crept into the cargo hold from the new opening.
The thud of heavy boots on the metal deck grew closer and closer until several figures appeared outside her cage. They were dressed in the blue-grey camouflage fatigues of Earth troopers. They were accompanied by a pair of medics in scrubs and lab coats who ordered the troopers about. Althus was unfortunately familiar with both groups and despised both equally.
Colonel Bishop's troopers were brutes, and what they lacked in intelligence and imagination they made up for in loyalty and obedience to their commander's sadism. The medics followed orders from the project leader, Doctor Incite, and were responsible for their medical monitoring and experimentation. Althus shuddered at memories of the past months under their care full of spinal taps, hundreds of blood draws and forced enemas. To be honest, being enclosed in a small box had been a welcome relief from their attentions
The troopers kicked her cage to see if she was awake. One of them opened the thumb scan lock and swung the door open. The crackling end of a cattle prod entered the cage. Pulsing electricity surged through her left leg where it made contact. She howled in pain.
"C'mon out of there, you crabby lass." One of the medics ordered her.
Althus gingerly crawled out of her confinement. Not only were her muscles stiff but the electric shock from the cattle prod had left her with a dead leg for several minutes. Not moving fast enough to suit her captors, one of the troopers grabbed her by the collar and yanked her out of the box. He jerked her to her feet and shoved her against the nearest wall. He did the same with Srev a moment later, followed by the remainder of the Convor's crew.
They were arranged in a single file and turned towards the exit with Althus in the lead. One of the troopers unslung her slugthrower and smacked the butt of it into Althus's shoulder. "Move it, alien bitch."
The Mon Cal led her four comrades towards the exit and down the ramp. The troopers stayed as an escort while the medics excused themselves for other duties. The first thing Althus noticed was the roar of the wind outside. It was cold and piercing and Althus could feel it before she ever glimpsed the outside world the ship had landed on. At the top of the ramp she saw it. It had been nearly eight years since her family had left the world but there was no mistaking its red plains.
"This is utter horseshit." Althus heard one of the guards complain as they descended the ramp. "I can't believe we're getting reassigned to this hellhole. This place is freezing cold."
"Do you ever stop bitching, Private?" Another guard asked. "When we were out at Groom Lake all you did was bitch about the heat, and now you're bitching about the cold."
"Screw you, Nick." The first guard said. "At least I'm actually thinking ahead. Area 51 was secure. Secure and air conditioned. But this place is crawling with ET's."
"That's the point." The second guard said. "More ET's means more test subjects for Incite's research. Best to concentrate the doctor's experiments in one location, and what better location than where most of the subjects already are?"
"Is that the reason they're giving for this reshuffle?" The first guard didn't sound convinced as she glared out at the horizon. "I heard the President wanted every alien prisoner off Earth after that air raid."
"Shut your traps, the both of you." Ordered another guard. "You're not paid to gossip. If any of you have a problem with your assignment, then you can take it up with the Colonel."
That shut them up. It seemed that the prisoners weren't the only ones who lived in fear of Colonel Bishop.
The guards paused them at the bottom of the ramp as they awaited instructions. Althus shuddered from the cold and pulled her utility suit closer. Thankfully its material worked as a windbreaker, but the cold still seeped in. Instinctively, her head turned to the right where her eyes were drawn to a massive mountain towering over them and occupying the entire horizon to the north and south.
"Olympus Mons." Teemasvalli announced through a hacking cough. Althus almost didn't hear him through the blowing wind. "Told you we were on Mars."
"You want a prize, Captain?" Althus studied the Dresselian for a second. "Why are you wheezing? I thought Mars had enough oxygen for your species."
"It's got enough to be comfortable. Besides it's not the oxygen, it's the wind. Fierfek, I hope this isn't a karking haboob." Teemasvalli worried.
"Haboob?" Srev asked with a nervous chuckle.
"Big dust storm. Can cover the whole planet." Melion explained. "You and Althus are probably too young to remember them. Emperor Yos claimed old, dead Moff Culter fixed them. It's not the oxygen that irritates the Captain, it's the dust."
Force-stang, the Captain was pathetic, Althus decided. First, he gets us lost and now we're stuck with him as part of a mad scientist's laboratory experiments. Speaking of experiments, Althus spotted one man she had hoped they had left behind at Area 51 back on Earth.
Colonel Bishop stood at the front of a massive Earth transport over a hundred yards from the prisoners. Despite the cutting winds his bellows could be heard quite clearly. His current shouts were aimed at a pair of crewmen from the transport. By their orange flight suits Althus guessed they were the pilot and co-pilot of the Confederate transport.
"This is not Area 52! You were supposed to drop us off at Camp Biden." Colonel Bishop snapped at the aircrew.
The pilot merely shrugged. "Call Sydney, sir. My orders are to consolidate all prisoners here."
"They're not prisoners, they're test subjects. Order 7-3-1 states all test subjects were to be brought to Area 52 here on Mars. I've got that signed by Dr. Incite and the Minister of Improvement himself." Bishop argued.
"Like I said, take it up with Space Force. We got our orders from Admiral Akfar. I hear Kafrene Outpost is even colder than this place. Have fun finding him all the way out there." The pilot was unmoved.
"We're sorry, sir. But your project is only, like, five percent of our cargo. We're bringing in a bunch of trucks and medical supplies for the boys coming down from there." The copilot pointed up at the dormant volcano, causing Althus to take another look at its peak. At its top was an unnatural haze of smoke that lingered over much of its height. They didn't look volcanic but appeared as if a large battle had been fought up there.
"So what am I supposed to do? March my experiments all the way to Area 52? It's on the other side of the world." Bishop asked.
"There is a hover railhead just over a hundred kilometers from here. You've got three semi-trailers aboard the transport. Why don't you just drive them?" The co-pilot said.
"Those trucks are filled with medical equipment that is slated for Area 52. I still need to move my staff and experiments." Bishop said.
"You could always snag a Humvee or two from the Army for your staff. But your experiments can walk along with them." The pilot nodded to something behind them, causing Bishop and the Convor crew to turn to see what he was indicating.
The transport had landed among several other transports of numerous shapes and sizes at the base of the mountain and were in various stages of unloading or loading supplies and troopers of the Earth Army. Along one side of the makeshift landing field was a roadway filled with large, wheeled landspeeder trucks. Their fuel-celled engines strained as they hauled artillery slugthrowers down from the mountain. Althus noticed that their rear cabins were packed with laughing Earth troopers acting as if they had just achieved a major victory.
Indeed they must have, for after one particularly long line of landspeeders had passed another column had appeared. It was this formation that the pilot had nodded towards.
They came by the hundreds, clumped in groups of a dozen or twenty or stretched out in single file along the dirt roadway that led up to the mountain's escarpment. They were unarmed and under heavy guard by more Earth troopers that walked alongside them. It was only then that it truly hit her, never realizing it during their long confinement, that the Earth and the Empire were once more at war with one another.
The prisoners were Stormtroopers and Imperial officers of every variant imaginable. Their helmets were all removed. As they came closer Althus noticed how skeletal they all appeared. Their eyes and cheeks were sunken in and they bore the look of beings who had endured a heart-wrenching catastrophe.
They were shuffled to the side of the roadway to allow passage for more troop carriers coming down from the mountain. This time a dozen small Earth walkers forced the Stormtroopers aside, lest they be trampled. Alongside the roadway, guards shouted orders at the prisoners telling them to peel off their armor and toss it upon growing piles of white plastoid pieces. Once they were stripped down to their body gloves and boots the prisoners were shuffled into the field next to the Convor crew. Every ten minutes or so a group of a hundred prisoners was split from the rest, lined up four abreast and placed under the protection of five guards and an NCO and sent off down the roadway in the same direction as the vehicle convoys.
Bishop left the transport crew and found the highest ranking trooper he could amongst the prisoner guards. This time he was too far for Althus to hear. Instead she stood watching the pitiful troopers who huddled together against the bitter wind. Their captors did not allow them to sit down. The Colonel talked to several guards for a few minutes, occasionally gesturing back at Althus and her hapless comrades. When he seemed to have settled whatever he set out to accomplish he returned to the group at the bottom of the loading ramp.
"Corporal." Bishop addressed one of the guards.
"Yes, sir."
"I'm taking the trucks and the medical staff ahead to Area 52. Half of your guards will come with me to drive the trucks. Pick three men and escort the test subjects to the railhead up ahead. I know it's far, but you can draw supplies from the Army. Area 52 is attached to POW Camp Biden outside of Amidala City, so you and the Army are traveling in the same direction." Bishop glared at the five captives. "This scum can eat whatever the army feeds the Stormtroopers. If they make it, well then good for them. It sounds like we pulled in a lot of test subjects for Area 52 with that Order 7-3-1."
"Yes, sir. Colonel. We will try our best to get them there." The Corporal accepted his orders.
"Do it or don't do it. I don't give a fuck about trying." Bishop exchanged salutes with his men and then climbed the ramp back up into the transport.
The corporal and his selected troopers led the captives over to the mob of Stormtrooper prisoners. By now there were several thousand of them sitting in the field along with many hundreds of civilians who had fought alongside them up atop Olympus Mons. The Stormtroopers eyed the new arrivals in their orange prisoner utility suits with some suspicion as they were mixed in among them. Seeing that they were all non-humans lowered their suspicions. Everyone knew the Earthlings had no love for aliens.
The corporal and his guards mingled with the Confederate Army troopers guarding the field. The crew quietly talked with the Stormtroopers and within minutes they were shocked to learn of the war, the attack by the First Order, the fall of the rimward Bloodstripe Run and the rise of the CEN. Even more shocking was the fact they had become minor celebrities. The Convor was notorious as a lost ghost ship after its disappearance two years ago. Althus fumed at that. Doing the math, she realized Teemsavalli's folly had caused them to be frozen in carbonite for almost a year and a half standard. About a year longer than she had originally figured.
"You think we should stick by the Captain, Althus?" Srev asked while the others caught up with the Stormtroopers.
"You can do whatever you want, Srev. We're no longer aboard the Convor, so Teemasvalli can go fierfek himself." Althus told her former crewmate.
"But what about the others? If we fall apart we will end up just like poor Ania." Srev reminded her of the human crewman the monster from the First Order had casually murdered when Teemasvalli had led them aboard their ship and into the First Order's hands.
"That's what following the Captain will get you. I can take care of myself. You should to." Althus advised him. The Xexto's shoulders slumped in despair. Althus couldn't look him in the eyes, knowing she planned on abandoning them the first chance she had. She was already looking for gaps in the guard line to make good her escape when the time came.
The mob stirred as something odd was happening on the roadway. Some three hundred prisoners, give or take, were being herded into the field across from the one holding the rest of the prisoners. Guards lined the road separating the two groups. Althus noticed the smaller group of Stormtroopers opposite them were being bound with wire around their wrists and made to stand in aligned rows.
"Hey, sir?" One of the Stormtroopers called a nearby guard. "What's going on over there?"
"Shut the fuck up, ET." The guard snapped back at them.
Another guard just laughed. "Just a bit of Earth justice. Those troopers were still fighting after your Moff surrendered for nearly two hours. By our law that makes them war criminals."
A smattering of murmurs went through the prisoners. Nobody wanted to speak up out of fear of what would happen to them. "That's not true." Someone whispered close to her. "I never heard any blasting after Hinter surrendered."
They started on opposite ends of the formation. One side included five Earth troopers while the other team consisted of two officers. They seemed to be making a sport of it. The five troopers lunged at the restrained prisoners and plunged the bayonets on the ends of their slugthrowers into their helpless victims. Althus's eyes went wide in horror as her mind rebelled against what it was seeing. It was the steady pop of the officers' side arms that snapped her back to reality. Each man held their slugthrower to the forehead of a Stormtrooper and squeezed the trigger, dropping the victim where they stood. The two groups seemed to be racing towards the middle in a horrific contest to see who could rack up the most kills.
"Force save Empress Phasma!"
"Long live the Empire!" A few startled troopers managed to cry out before falling to the murderous blows of the Earthlings.
It took them twenty minutes to finish the job. All in front of the thousands of other captives in the field. Althus didn't know if the accusations of continued fighting were real or not but the implications of what the Earthers did in the opposing field were crystal clear. Get out of line and you will be dead.
The smell of blood, urine, cold sweat and excrement blew in on the chilling wind. Feathered and scaled aviaries struggled in the stiff breeze as they circled over the field of the dead waiting for the Earthlings to leave so they could start their feast.
Althus's mind was in a state of revolt after witnessing the horrific slaughter on the other side of the roadway. The Stormtroopers around her were various degrees of scared and angry, but they all wore a level of acceptance on their faces. What had happened to the Empire in the past two years, she wondered?
"We surrendered. So, we get what we deserve." Someone suggested.
"Shut the kriff up." Some else growled at the whiner.
If she was going to get through this nightmare, then Althus was going to have to rely on her own instincts. The rest of the crew of the Convor were expendable, after all they were at their cores opportunistic hyper-route scouts who wouldn't hesitate to cut the throats of their hyperspace competition.
As they milled around, the Confederate guards counted off groups of a hundred and sent them off down the roadway under guard whenever it was clear of wheeled traffic. Althus unsuccessfully tried several times to infiltrate the departing groups to escape Teemasvalli and the others. Unfortunately, every time she tried, the corporal spotted her and called her back into the field. Perhaps it was her orange utility suit or the fact that she was one of only a few hundred aliens among thousands of humans and near-human Stormtroopers that gave her away.
They sat in the field for several hours, huddled in large groups to protect against the bone-cutting wind. Althus caught up on the news of the Empire and the fall of Mars. Most of it sounded unreal, from the raid on Nal Kuat to the loss of two Star Destroyers at Earth. More and more prisoners came down from the volcano as hundreds of trucks streamed past. The Confederates were withdrawing their army and the POWs were almost an afterthought. Further proof of this was when other prisoners asked for food or water. They were told they'd get rations when they arrived at camp. It quickly set in that they would have to march a hundred kilometers before they received anything. That's when the fear really settled in.
Althus lost track of the hours before Bishop's guards pulled her and the others up and shoved them into a forming column of Stormtroopers. The formation included nearly a dozen officers, six other civilian support personnel, twenty Naval Troopers and the remainder a motley mix of Stormtrooper variants. The Corporal and his three comrades were joined by another three Earth troopers who pushed and shoved their charges into place. They were also taking the opportunity to search their prisoners thoroughly for anything of value before they set out.
A rank ahead of Althus a TIE pilot lieutenant was being searched by a trooper with a single chevron on his uniform. Standing by was the Corporal, hand on the hilt of some kind of bladed weapon he had tucked into a large pouch on his belt. These guards were nothing like the backwards, uneducated farm boys whose holopics were familiar to most HoloNews readers. They were exhausted, sick and hungry themselves and they had lost many comrades up on Olympus Mons. They also came from a culture of cruelty to anyone below them socially. Confederate troopers on Mars did not need orders to inflict violence on prisoners they already regarded with cold disdain.
The trooper, a little squirt, was going through the lieutenant's pockets. All at once he stopped and sucked in his breath with a hissing sound. He had found some Confederacy dollars.
He held these out, ducking his head and sucking in his breath to attract notice. The big Corporal looked at the money. Without a word he grabbed the lieutenant by the shoulder and shoved him down to his knees. He pulled a cooking cleaver out of his belt and raised it high over his head, holding it with both hands. The trooper guard jumped to one side and stuffed the dollars into his own pocket.
Before Althus could grasp what was happening, the Corporal had swung his cleaver. Althus was stricken by how the light of Sol flashed on it. There was a swish and a kind of chopping thud, like a viborblade going through a nerf.
The lieutenant's head seemed to jump off his shoulders. It hit the ground in front of Althus and went rolling crazily from side to side between the lines of prisoners.
The body fell forward. Althus had seen wounds, but never such a gush of blood as this. The heart continued to pump for a few seconds and at each beat there was another great spurt of blood. The red dust around Althus's feet was turned into crimson mud. She saw the hands were opening and closing spasmodically. Then she looked away.
When Althus looked again the big Corporal had put up his cleaver and was strolling off. The runt guard who had found the dollars helped himself to the lieutenant's possessions. That was the first murder in their group.
The column had to wait for a regiment of tracked tanks to pass before they could take to the roadway. Althus checked several times over her shoulder to judge how far they would travel, and as they went along the landing field and its transports disappeared from view, but Olympus Mons never seemed to diminish in size as it towered over them.
Sol slowly dipped below the western horizon and yet the march did not come to a halt. The hours dragged by and, as Althus knew they must, the drop-outs began. The Stormtroopers were obviously malnourished and exhausted. They claimed they hadn't had a proper meal in months. It seemed that a great many of the prisoners reached the end of their endurance at about the same time. They went down by twos and threes. Usually, they made an effort to rise. Althus cringed at their groans and strangled breathing as they tried to get up. Some succeeded. Others lay lifelessly where they had fallen.
Althus observed that the Confederate guards paid no attention to these fallen Stormtroopers. She wondered why. The explanation wasn't long in coming. There was a sharp crackle of slugthrower fire behind the column.
Skulking along, a hundred meters behind Althus's contingent, came a 'clean-up squad' of murdering Confederate harvaps. Their helpless victims, sprawled darkly against the red of the roadway, were easy targets.
As Earthling members of the murder squad stooped over each huddled form, there would be an orange flash in the darkness and a sharp report. The bodies were left where they lay, that other prisoners coming behind might see them.
Althus's guards enjoyed the spectacle in silence for a time. Eventually, one of them, who spoke a little Huttese slang, felt he should add a little spice to the entertainment. "Winkee? Winkee?" he asked. 'You want sleep? Just lie down on road. You get grancha winkee!"
To emphasis his cruelty the guards waved the column to the side of the roadway. Out of the dark came yet another convoy of heavy trucks. Normal landspeeders would have floated over corpses left in the road but now Althus got to witness the gruesomeness of the Earth design. Their rubber wheels mashed the bodies into the red roadway. Again, and again the cadavers were struck by more transports until they were completely pulverized into broken bone and meat.
Althus shuffled away from that particular guard. She'd seen him hit several Stormtroopers during the march with his slugthrower. They were all cruel monsters, but somehow it was worse when they added condescension to their torture. On through the night they were followed by orange flashes and thudding sounds.
They marched through the first night without a rest. They only finally stopped when an Earth landspeeder dropped meals for the guards. The formation rested while the guards greedily ate their breakfast in front of the prisoners. None of the prisoners were permitted to leave the formation to relieve themselves. Many of the Stormtroopers had been wracked with dysentery up on the volcano and had brought it down with them. Althus had been disgusted to smell them as they marched. Many of them immediately dropped their pants and defecated on the ground. Althus could feel some pity for them, during the night she had been forced to urinate on the march, which didn't help with the cold wind. She didn't know when she would get another chance and saw that the guards were finishing up their meals. Soon they'd be on the road again and so Althus resigned to ignore her embarrassment. She pulled down her pants and in the middle of the huddled prisoners took care of her necessities. Nobody judged her as half the formation was doing the same.
When she had finished her business, she found that Pontar was standing next to her. It was tough to gauge how a Givin was doing as they already appeared as animated skeletons even at their most fit. "How are you doing, Althus?"
"Oh, you know me. I can't complain." Althus lied.
"If you did the guards will blast you down." He leaned closer and spoke softly enough so that only she could hear him. "Have you noticed we are missing some troopers from our little group here?"
Althus looked around. The group had probably dwindled down to eighty survivors from the march. A lot of them didn't look as if they'd make it through another full day on the roadway. "They probably fell out and were finished off by that ghoulish womp rat patrol that's following us."
"I have kept a count of everyone in the formation. Sixteen could not continue and collapsed. But five of them, the two other TIE pilots, a Stormtrooper, a AT-ACT driver and a civilian Juggernaut driver, filtered out of our column when the guards weren't looking." The Givin reported.
"Where would they go?" Althus asked. She didn't know much about Mars after having moved away from it when she was a mere ten years old.
"I've spoken with some of the other prisoners while we marched. There are rumors of partisans on Mars. Especially a particularly large group called Sarge's Irregulars. Perhaps they joined them." Pontar answered.
"Do you think they'll rescue us?"
"Not according to my calculations. It would be extremely risky to strike the roadway right now. You've seen how many troopers the Confederate Army is moving back to Amidala City. Besides it's my understanding that the partisans only recently escaped Olympus Mons themselves and are in the process of setting up their insurgency. They might be able to hit one or two high value targets while the enemy is strung out like this but . . ." Ponta's words hung in the air.
"We aren't exactly high value." Althus finished the Givin's thoughts. Dr. Incite might disagree but from what the Corporal and his guards had said it sounded like they had other test subjects up ahead at this Area 52 place that could replace the Convor's crew if something were to happen to them. "Palp's tits! I could use something to drink."
"Thirst is going to become a larger issue today, I'm afraid. Here take these." The Givin looked to see if any of the guards were looking in their direction and when he was satisfied that they were unobserved he removed several small stems from his sleeve.
"Quench weed?" Althus quickly took the offered gift before clandestinely stuffing them in her mouth. Immediately, a small burst of water gushed down her throat. The stems were inedible unfortunately and she sneakily spit them back into her hand before dropping them to the ground.
"I don't require as much nourishment as the rest of you." Pontar said. Which wasn't exactly true. Givin had to eat and drink, they just usually did it once every five-day week.
"Where did you find it? It didn't come with us from Earth." Althus inquired.
"It didn't. To tell the truth I wouldn't know an edible plant species from poisonous harrowbane." Pontar explained. "It was actually Teemasvalli. He grew up on an agricombine somewhere around here. He got into astrocartography to get away from plants, but he never forgot."
"I didn't know that. Tell him I said thanks." Althus didn't know what else to say. She had been avoiding the Captain for the dead weight he usually was. But she didn't know how far she'd make it today without that little bit of water the quench weed provided. She made a note to keep an eye out for more along the roadway. Maybe if she found enough she'd even share it with the other crew members. Maybe.
The guards roused everyone back into formation again. Some of the sick were too worn out to hike. Althus was surprised when their comrades slung shelter halves around poles as sling litters. They placed the poles over their shoulders and prepared to carry the sick until they recovered some of their energy to walk again or passed away into the Force. Whichever came first. The guards saw the litters and shrugged. They would only wear the stronger troopers down faster.
The guards hit several prisoners at the front of the column to get them moving again. Within hours chatter among the prisoners had dropped into silence. Althus could see several Stormtrooper's whose tongues were thick with the dust kicked up by the constant wind storm and the constantly passing trucks. Even Althus's throat was parched as she daydreamed of finding more quench weed.
They passed an agricombine with a large moisture vaporator in front of it. The settlers that had lived there must have long since ran off. The machine was close to the roadway and dripped with moisture since it was obvious it hadn't been emptied in some time. Within minutes ten to fifteen prisoners ran to the moisture vaporator. One of the Confederate troopers came over and started to laugh at them. The first five drank their fill, and when the sixth Stormtrooper began drinking, the guard suddenly pushed his bayonet into the man's neck and back. The Imperial prisoner fell to his knees, gasped several times for breath, and then fell over onto his face.
"Get back in line, you thirsty fucks. You shits don't deserve a fucking drop." The guard shouted at the prisoners as they scrambled back onto the roadway.
They continued to march. The wind continued to howl. Two hours after the murder at the moisture vaporator the wind switched direction and roared so fiercely into their faces that the prisoners had to lean into it to make any head way. Even the guards were starting to be beaten back by its fury. Landspeeder trucks on the roadway came to a halt as the gale gathered force and speed.
The guards shouted at the prisoners to lay down in a ditch alongside the roadway. Troopers blew over as they rushed to obey their masters' commands. The guards huddled behind the stalled trucks with their weapons trained on the nearby prisoners lest any of them get any ideas.
As Althus braced against the freezing wind she gradually noticed that the other prisoners were no longer lying flat alongside her. Instead they sat upon the red mud of the ditch packed together in a tight huddle. They moved together in a circle to keep warm and to limit the exposure of one side of their circle to the wind to only a few short minutes.
"Althus, get in here!" She heard Melion's voice pierce the screeching of the hurricane force wind. She did as she was told, squeezing in beside the lanky Munn. He ran his hands up and down her arms rapidly to help her warm herself.
"Thanks, Melion." She said as she accustomed herself to the constant shifting left of the circle. "It's colder than Kafrene Outpost out there."
"Don't thank me. Teemasvalli and a few of the Snowtroopers came up with the idea. He did survival training with the Ministry of Space before he got his Hyperspace scouting license." Melion explained. "It sure beats laying down in a frozen ditch. Not by much, hear you, but it's slightly better."
Althus just nodded her head. Twice now the Captain had surprised her. She had yet to come up with any ideas on how to alleviate the sheer agony and misery of the march so far.
The wind eventually died down. At least enough to allow them to stand without getting shoved backwards a couple meters. As the truck convoys started up again the guards returned and shouted at the prisoners to get back on their feet. Getting back into the rhythm of the march again helped to warm them up.
Grey clouds raced overhead driven by the high-speed winds. With them carried the tease of rain or snow that never seemed to fall. The lack of water was really starting to take its toll on the prisoners, especially the sick. Many of the troopers in the columns along the roadway were just too weak and had too many illnesses to continue. If they stopped on the side of the roadway to defecate, they would be mercilessly beaten within a millimeter of their lives or killed.
As they came into more areas with farming villages or occupied agricombines Imperial civilians came out to watch the long lines of prisoners pass by. The guards chased off or killed any civilian who tried to give water or bits of food to the passing prisoners. They were especially cruel to alien civilians.
Four more hours in the skin-peeling wind brought them several more kilometers closer to their final destination. They passed a small, shallow swamp where two banthas wallowed about twenty meters from the roadway. Althus took one look at the water and could see it was not fit to drink; green scum and bantha poodoo floated on top. The two banthas hunkered down as far as they could into the water to block some of the wind. The troopers were dying of thirst, however, and ready to do anything for a drop of water.
A Scout Trooper mentioned the swamp to a nearby guard and asked if they could get some of the water. The guard looked at the pungent liquid and started to laugh. He waved the troopers out of the formation.
In a matter of moments dozens of half crazed troopers from their group as well as the two groups behind them ran towards the bantha occupied swamp. The troopers pushed the green scum away and started drinking the water.
Only a few minutes went by before a Confederate officer ran to the swamp's edge and began hollering at the Stormtroopers in the water. She didn't seem to indicate the troopers were in any trouble, but they nonetheless jogged back into line to continue the march. What happened next was something Althus thought unbelievable only the day before. The officer, with a big broad smile on her face, began prancing around Althus's formation and ordered the guards to search their ranks for any trooper with water-soaked body gloves. The guards picked them out of the column of marching troopers and lined them up on the side of the road. Nearly forty of them in all. Then the officer took out a machine-slugthrower and hosed down the troopers she had pulled out. It was over in seconds as forty bodies flopped lifelessly into the roadside ditch.
The column didn't slow, it merely merged with the formation in front of theirs, which was down to two-thirds of its original strength. The officer climbed aboard a smaller landspeeder and had her driver cruise slowly past the column while she heartily laughed at them. The wind was not the only thing that chilled Althus to the bone.
That night they slept in a small copse of trees, which the Confederates kept well-lit with the headlamps of several of their wheeled trucks. They only stopped because their guards were exhausted and needed sleep. The Earth troopers slept in the back of the vehicles while the prisoners made due with cold, hard dirt.
Pontar didn't report any new missing prisoners in the morning, but when they set off on the third day of the unending march five troopers failed to get up from the ground. They had joined the Force sometime in the night. The way her muscles ached, and stomach growled Althus was almost envious of them. The Corporal made sure of each trooper on the ground with a single slug to the head before the column got moving again. It was all the epitaph they would ever receive.
Every muscle in Althus's body ached and seemed on the verge of collapse. Her analytical engineer brain developed two simple rules to help with her perseverance. Rule One is she took one more step. Rule Two, when she didn't think she could take one more step, she referred back to rule one.
Following her rules got her through most of the fourth morning when a group of Confederate officers came barreling down the roadway on a trio of captured 74-Z speeder bikes. One of them was waving a purloined BL-155 laser ax from side to side, apparently trying to cut off the head of anyone he could. Althus was on the outside of the column when he rode past, and although she ducked the main thrust of the ax, the end of the laser blade hit her left shoulder, missing her head and shoulders by mere centimeters.
As the Confederate officer rode off with his friends, Althus reached up with her right hand to stem the blue blood coming from the cut in her carapace. She would need stitches soon if she were to continue. She called to the nearest guard. "Medic. I need a medic."
He had witnessed the whole event as it had played out and simply shrugged. "Take care of your own, you damn alien."
Althus tried not to glare at the Earthling. Showing disrespect of any sort was a quick way to earn a beating from the cruel guards. Instead, she just bowed her bloody neck. "Thank you, sir. Of course, I will, sir."
"Chuba, Althus. That looks kriffing nasty." Srev was suddenly at her side. One of his many hands was intrusively moving towards her injury.
Althus instinctively slapped it away. "Echuta. Knock it off."
"That needs to be patched up before you lose too much blood." Srev warned.
"Yeah, well I don't suppose you have any kriffing FlastFlesh Slap Patches on you." Althus chuckled at the absurd thought. They had been thoroughly searched before leaving Earth and then again before this stang march of death.
"I have some string." Srev held up the sleeve of his utility suit. A long piece of orange string had frayed from the cuff and now dangled from his arm. He held up a paperclip which he had straightened out and sharpened. Althus had seen many of them back in Area 51. "And I picked up one of these on the roadway. The Earthlings seem fond of them for their flimsi."
"Do you know how to stitch?" Althus asked with much doubt in her voice.
"Yes. Teemasvalli taught me basic first aid. We got in several cantina fights on Doriana before you were hired onto the Convor." Srev enlightened her, yet again revealing a side of the Captain that she wasn't aware of.
"What I'd give to be on Doriana right about now." Althus admitted.
"No you wouldn't. From what the Stormtroopers say it's in Confederate hands. Everything is, all the way down to Kafrene Outpost."
"Curse these Confed sleemos." Althus whispered. She tugged down her collar and exposed the gash. The column was slowing down as they started to climb a small hill. "Alright, do it, and be quick about it."
Srev worked as fast as he could. His extra appendages served him well for the situation. Despite the pain of Srev shoving a paperclip over and over again through her carapace Althus shuffled on. She tried to walk as slowly as she could to avoid the attention of the guards and give Srev a steady platform to work on. It took him ten minutes but by the time he was done there was a nice line of orange string holding her red-shelled skin together. "You don't happen to have any bacta on you as well?"
"No, sorry, Althus. I don't even think the guards carry any. The bacta farms on New Thyfeeria are still in Imperial hands, thank the light side." Srev reported, which explained why the Confederates didn't carry much bacta on them.
"Thanks, Srev." Althus tested the stitching with her finger. "You do wizard work."
"The crew of the Convor has got to look out for one another. We are all each other has." Srev smiled and walked ahead.
Althus watched the Xexto march away. Maybe he was right. She had accomplished nothing on the march other than putting one foot in front of the other. Was he right? If she was going to get through this nightmare, would she need the help of the rest of the crew?
Her realizations and indecisiveness about the best means of survival didn't end the horrors of the march. The guards pushed them on and on during the day. The nightmares only grew worse the further they went.
As Sol fell, they reached a small farming village that went by the name of Massassi, where the prisoners were herded into a large warehouse that was previously used to store Zeltron pop-peppers. Unfortunately, the place was empty of pop-peppers which just left more room for more prisoners. When the warehouse was full to capacity, the guards pushed and shoved another couple hundred troopers inside.
They were so tightly packed together that Althus was pressed into other prisoners on all sides. At least they were finally out of the blasted wind for a night. Althus's shoulder throbbed from her wound. On top of that she really had to urinate. Eventually, she just went in her pants, knowing the wind tomorrow would blow them dry again. Other prisoners who had to defecate squeezed into one of the corners of the warehouse and did it there. That night, poodoo covered the floor from those who had dysentery, which caused many others locked in with them to contract the lethal disease.
The stench, the sounds of dying troopers and the whines and groans of those too sick to move to the back of the building had become so unbearable that Althus pressed small pieces of cloth into her ears in a feeble attempt to drown out some of the noise. Nothing could be done about the stench. The Confederate guards, also unable to bear the horrible smell, closed the doors to the warehouse, put a pad lock on them and kept watch from outside.
Thirty-five troopers and civilians died in the warehouse that night. In the morning their bodies were tossed like garbage into a field behind the building. They weren't even offered a pyre and Althus hoped the locals around here would take care of them after the prisoner columns marched on.
The fifth day of the march proved to be one of the worst days of Althus's life. Her wound still pulsed with pain despite Srev's stitches and she knew she needed to allow it time to heal. She didn't have the luxury of time for on that day she witnessed one of the most sadistic and inhumane incidents of the entire march.
They had just stopped for a brief rest while waiting for another group to catch up to them. When the other group finally arrived, the Corporal ordered them to stand up and start walking. One of the troopers in the new group had a bad case of festering plague, a disease that seemed to scare the Earthlings much more than it deserved. A good dosage of bacta usually cleared it right up with no ill effects. This trooper had barely made it to the rest area. He was burning up with fever and severely disorientated. When ordered to stand up he could not do so. Without a minute's hesitation the guard hit him over the head with the butt of his slugthrower, knocking the sick trooper to the ground. The guard called for two nearby Stormtroopers to start digging a hole to bury the fallen trooper. The two troopers started digging and when the hole was a half meter deep the guard ordered the two troopers to place the sick trooper in the hole and bury him alive. The two troopers shook their heads. "We can't do that."
Without warning, the guard blasted the bigger of the two troopers in the chest. He then pulled two more prisoners from the line and ordered them to dig another hole to bury the murdered trooper. The Confederate guard got his point across. They dug the second hole, placed the two bodies inside the pits and then threw dirt over them. The first trooper, still alive, started screaming as the red dirt was thrown on him. The screams didn't last long.
Immediately, after witnessing the execution-style burial, Althus's mind strangely turned to the positive side for survival. She wondered if she could overcome the total despair she felt as she was forced to watch these constant brutalities. She had to keep a positive attitude, oddly not just for her own survival, but suddenly she cared about the survival of the Convor's crew as well. Caring about others was an unsettling feeling but she didn't fight it.
She vowed to walk with determination to Area 52, her head high, shoulders back and chest out. The new posture made her feel righteous, and the guards did not harass or belittle the prisoners who looked healthy and in control of themselves.
The other members of the crew noticed what Althus was doing. As did a few of the scattered captured civilians in the long column. They started imitating her example as they noticed the guards left her alone. Soon Teemasvalli and another half a dozen beings were striding purposely through the struggling ranks of Stormtroopers. All they needed was that one spark to push away the darkness that was all around them.
Not that the darkness could be held at bay forever. As they trudged on, Althus began to spot headless corpses in the roadway ditches. Out of boredom, she started counting bodies . At twenty-seven, three bodies per kilometer, she stopped counting because she decided that what she was doing was slowly driving her crazy.
She soon found the source of the headless corpses. The guards, as they often did to make up time or get out of the way of a truck convoy, ordered her section to double-time, or run, to keep up with a fresh group of guards. As they passed a strange set of Confederate troopers, the guards ordered them to stop.
The new Confederates were tall individuals in green armor. Well over two meters tall, they towered over the other Confederate troopers. Althus at first thought they were battle droids of some sort until she watched their mannerisms and how they acted around each other. There were certainly sentients underneath that grim-appearing armor. The other Earth troopers shied away from their bigger comrades or fell over themselves to get out of their way. She overheard a nearby guard spit onto the ground and mutter quietly, "Fucking Legionnaires."
One of the so-called Legionnaires turned his head towards the guard. From twenty meters away, further than he should have been able to hear the disrespectful Earth trooper, he pushed his way through the captured prisoners who parted in front of the big brute like the bow wave in front of an aquatic skiff. The Legionnaire reached the guard who glared up at him. Without a word, the Legionnaire backhanded the guard so hard that his feet actually went over his head as he cartwheeled away. The guard collapsed unconscious to the ground to the laughter of the other Legionnaires and the shock of the captured Stormtroopers.
When Althus looked over to where the group of Legionnaires were, she saw a Stormtrooper kneeling in front of a Legionnaire officer. The officer had an ancient vibrosword in his hand. Althus wondered where he had gotten it before realizing that he had probably looted it during the invasion. He carried it like a youngling held a new toy and was amateurishly waving it about to the delight of his troopers.
Up went the blade, and with a clumsy flourish and a loud "For Harris" the officer brought the vibrosword down. Althus heard a dull thud above the weapon's electric buzz, and the Stormtrooper was decapitated. The Legionnaire officer then kicked his body over into a nearby field. All of the other Legionnaires continued to laugh throughout the event before walking away.
As Althus witnessed the grotesque tragedy and as the vibrosword came down her whole body twitched. Out of shock she clasped her hands together in front of her. Her parents were Christian converts, but she had never paid faith much heed. Now though, as she could hardly breathe, she whispered, "Jesus, please save us through your Force."
She gasped and would have thrown up if she had any food in her belly at all. What made the beheading especially sickening was that the Stormtrooper's body shook and twitched well after he was dead.
The awful decapitation was also a landmark of sorts. As it happened the murder occurred two kilometers short of the hovertrain depot at the town of Krayt Nexus. The overhead rails ran nearly eight hundred kilometers back to Amidala City or wherever Area 52 was located. They would have been on a hovertrain earlier but the 212th Legion had demolished everything closer to Olympus Mons. Even at Krayt Nexus the dormant volcano had hardly diminished in size on the horizon.
The wind was finally dying down as they were crammed into small hover-rail cars used for hauling nerfs and other livestock. A true haboob had never formed during the march, perhaps due to all the agricombines that had slowly conquered the loose soil of Mars over the past two decades.
Althus, the Convor crew, and about a hundred stormtroopers were shoved into the first car and left to wait while the rest of the prisoners arrived and were placed onboard. She panted for air as she was shoved into a corner of a car so tightly packed with the sick and the dying that it felt even worse than the warehouse they had been forced to sleep in the night before.
The car walls were comprised of lateral slats made of terenthium, each spaced about 21 millimeters apart from one another. She supposed the slats were spaced the way they were so that plenty of air could get to the animals the hovertrain car was supposed to carry. Such a design, however, was proving ineffective when so many sentients were being packed into the car. She leaned her head against the slats and kept her mouth close to one of the gaps, hoping to catch a breath of fresh air that would distract from the stifling stench. She wondered idly how many of the unfortunate troopers stuck in the center of the car would suffocate before they arrived.
A light sprinkling of rain began to descend from an overhanging cloud. One trooper on the far side of the car, overcome by thirst and hearing the light rain patter on the car's roof, broke down into hysterical tears, utterly inconsolable.
Althus reached into the pocket of her jumpsuit. Like everyone else in the car, she had been thoroughly searched a half dozen times for anything that might be of worth. The only thing she had on her person, considered completely useless by the guards who had found them, were three small plastic bottle caps, the sole remainder of her meager provisions from her trip from Area 51 to Mars.
Without looking at them Althus surreptitiously wedged the caps into the space between the slats behind her so that no one could see them. The rain was little more than a drizzle, and the three caps, even if filled, wouldn't amount to half a mouth full. But at this point anything was better than nothing.
The drizzle passed eventually, and Althus found that the caps had accumulated a small amount of water. As she reached for the first cap though, she heard a familiar, rasping wheeze as she felt the pressure on her back shift. Althus turned and saw that Teemasvalli had worked his way to her side of the car and was now pressed up against her.
Teemasvalli looked particularly worse for wear when compared to the rest of the crew. His chest was heaving as he gulped down what little air there was for him to inhale. Althus could see a vein on the Dressellian's head pulsing and throbbing.
"I'm sorry Althus." He muttered, almost incomprehensible, over the low roar of other voices in the car.
"What?" She asked. Surely he hadn't said he was sorry. The Teemasvalli that she knew had always been far too headstrong to ever consider the consequences of his actions.
"You've gotta hate me right now. I get it. I frakked up big time. I just wanted us all to strike it big." Teemasvalli swayed slightly and his eyes nearly rolled back into his head. If it wasn't for the fact that he was propped up between Althus and four other people he surely would have collapsed to the floor.
Althus placed a webbed hand on his shoulder to steady him. "Take it easy Captain. We made it. We're almost there."
"I know it doesn't mean much. But I just wanted to let you know, just in case..." Teemasvalli wheezed, unable to look her in the face.
Althus glanced around the car. Melion, Pontar, and Srev were just barely in eyesight amongst the teeming mass of Imperial POW's. Each of them had helped her out when she had originally wanted nothing more than to escape and leave them to their fates. Each had helped her with a skill they had learned from Teemasvalli. Perhaps he had gotten them into this mess, but he had also, indirectly, saved her life three times over since then.
Althus reached behind her and took the three caps from where they were wedged between the slats. She glanced once more to the other three members of her crew. They'd definitely make it. Teemasvalli though, he might not. At least, not without help.
Althus leaned in close to Teemasvalli's ear and pressed a cap into his hand. "Don't let anyone see you." She warned. The Captain's eyes widened as he saw what was in his hand before he quickly quaffed what little he had. Althus pressed a second cap, and then a third, into Teemasvalli's hand, and the Dressellian drained each one in rapid succession without thought, overcome by desperate thirst.
When he finished he finally looked directly at her. His eyes were wide, and for once the usually big mouthed hyperspace explorer was at a complete loss for words. Instead he wrapped his arms around her neck in a tight embrace, and for the longest time he didn't let go. The two remained pressed together as the hovertrain lurched forward and the final leg of their journey began.
They were taken on a thirteen hour ride to Alderaberg, a suburb of Amidala that had been settled by a large contingent of Alderaanians after the 'Big Jump'. It was near their final destination, the newly erected Prisoner of War Camp Biden and its attached research facility; Area 52.
They stumbled and shuffled into the camp after they got off the train. New guards glared down at them from new guard towers attached to a death wire perimeter fence surrounding the POW Camp.
The three other crew members joined Althus as she strode through the camp's gate, her old Captain by her side. Teemasvalli's gasp was much diminished, perhaps because he had lost nearly ten kilos on the march. "We made it on the marrow of our bones."
Srev smiled to the others. His sense of humor was all he still possessed. "If I had to do it all over again, I would commit suicide."
The Corporal and his fellow men from Dr. Incite's project split the Convor crew away from the other prisoners. The Stormtroopers filed into the camp by the thousands. Nobody spoke of the hundreds they left alongside the roadway to Olympus Mons.
Althus spotted many other beings inside the closed compound of Area 52 as they approached the medical laboratory. She noted that most of them were aliens and that there was never more than two of a particular kind. A small collection of humans could also be seen huddled together on the far corner of the compound. Aside from their species, this minority of test subjects were singled out from the rest by a large, black number 4 emblazoned onto the sleeve of each of their orange jumpsuits. They seemed as afraid of the alien prisoners as they were of the guards.
Colonel Bishop stood by the side of the gate to Area 52, sneering at the new arrivals. "Took you long enough. Enjoy your little stroll, did you?"
Althus wanted to kill him. She checked herself from doing anything rash. It wasn't just about her anymore. The crew would need each other to get through what lay ahead.
Bishop had the guards bar the gate after they had passed through. "Welcome to Camp Biden. Now your real trouble begins."
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Up Next: Heroes of Mars
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Everything that happened here, happened in a galaxy not so far away and not so long ago (The course of a single human lifetime). Reality can be far more frightening than science fiction